In life, like in football there is a phenomenon called the perfect storm. The perfect storm is a deal where everything that can go right does for a certain amount of time. On the flip side though, there are bad perfect storms. The past 12 days have been a perfect storm on the bad side in BugahaWest, not only in writing and sports, but also on the personal side. Let's go back a few days to Sunday, Oct. 11th. I'm thinking it would be a great day as usual for a Sunday. Go home, get some sleep and go to work Sunday night which would be my last night of work before a much needed 4 day vacation (our kids had the week off from school for fall break, not a coincidence, a plan). Well, that was the plan and that is not what happened. Yours truly gets home Sunday morning at 7 AM as usual but what is not so usual, my beloved bride was up sitting on the couch with a look in her eyes. I knew what was up so I just said, "Ok, I know its bads news, but is it from your side of the family or mine." Her reply was "Mine". I'm torturing my brain, trying to figure out who, and how when she told me her sister-in-law in Cali passed away overnight. Talk about shock in overload. It really put football and sports in perspective in a big way. We still had our vacation, but it wasn't the relaxing one, more like subdued and wishing it would get over so I could get back to normal and work. Heck, even my oldest son said he wished he still had school. Nothing worse than sitting around the house and in a daze, not eating, not sleeping, not doing anything. Anyways, the memorial that we were able to make was today here in town and it was nice. BugahaWest has lost a family member and dang it sucks.

But, I still have my loyal readers and in its own way, the next few moments of writing my blog will help me get back to normal a bit more. Mind you i have done absolutely no research on this past game against Tech, only read what I could at Omaha.com and other websites via our "competitor" over there in the high priced office building. What I do know is that even as myself and my family need to get back to normal somewhat, we as Husker fans need to get back to reality. This team made the top 25 how? By a win over Mizzou in bad weather that lets all face it, for more than 50 minutes of game time Mizzou dominated. For 5 minutes at the beginning of the 4th quarter NU was Nu and it felt good. This past Saturday our beloved Big Red wasn't our beloved Big Red. People talk about a trap game, but I don't buy it. Oakland beat Philly in the NFL, was that a trap, no that was the NFL. Purdue beat OSU, was that a trap, no that was Big 10 football. A few weeks back Washington beat USC, was that a trap, no that was PAC-10 football. What I am trying to say, this is football, high school, college, and NFL, it is football. On any given day one team can beat another. I read on yahoo.com a few weeks back where one high school team beat another one for the first time in 70 years. It can be done and in this era it is done more often than not. What did Tech do to us, something they do all the time, snap the ball, look downfield and throw it before the pass rush has a chance to get to the QB. Simple football, but effective football.

Another thing, I have to get on the players, play to the whistle. On the fumble, from what I heard is that 11 Husker players just looked at the ball while the Tech D picked it up and ran it for the TD. That swing in mo had a huge snowball effect over the course of the rest of the game,. not good. Play until the whistle blows, that is one thing Bo has to get these guys to do.

Secondly, the penalties are hurting bad. In the past 2 games we have 200 yards in penalties. This is not called for. I remember back in the day when it would take 4, 5, sometimes even 6 games to get to that number of penalties and yards. Once again, it is lack of discipline. I know it can be turned around, but it needs to be done now.

Third, as for offensive identity, it is apparent Helu is hurting. The problem is that this isn't the NFL, you can't sign a lounging Ahman Green to the squad to shore up the running game. You cannot pluck a Lydon Murtha from a practice squad to light a fire under a underachieving offensive line. Ladies and gentlemen, we have to realize that more or less these guys are recruits from the lost era. I know the sputtering will come from the back about Bob Stoops taking OU to the national title in his 2nd or 3rd season. Guys, that is OU. Kids from Texas and Oklahoma run over each other for the chance to play for the Sooners. USC struggled under Carroll's first two years as the head man (it has been that long since UCLA was the BMOC in LA). And Urban Myer at Florida didn't have to change much, he had the guys needed to run the system, he just had to tweak it a bit. Our deal is this, until coaching staff get Pelini guys in at more or less all the spots, this will still be a lost era offense, lost. You have to play the hand that was dealt and I think this was the major factor as to why Coach Pelini kept Watson as the OC. Give it time, be patient, this thing called college football is a marathon, not a sprint (see OU, as haven't been as successful as in Big Game Bob's first couple of years).

Keep the faith Big Red fans, the future still looks bright, we have caught glimpses of it already in the past 22 months. I can't think of much else so I will end this by saying this: Thank you for taking the time to read my blog posts, thank you for your patience in getting this week's post up, and thank you for your comments. God bless and Go Big Red.